By investigating the data presented in a model that displays extreme summer air temperatures, students explain energy transfer in the Earth system and consider the impact of excessive heat on local communities.
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Students construct explanations about Earth’s energy budget by connecting a model with observations from side-by-side animations of the monthly mapped data showing incoming and outgoing shortwave radiation from Earth’s surface.
This lesson plan provides some generic maps, graphs, and data tables for use with the Data Literacy Cube. Because it is a differentiated resource, this lesson plan is appropriate for multiple grade bands.
This lesson walks students through the use of Landsat false-color imagery and identification of different land cover features using these as models.
Students evaluate graphs and images of sea ice and relate them to changes in albedo. Students make a claim about the interaction of albedo and sea ice extent.
Students analyze the relationship between sea surface height and ocean surface currents by graphing sea height using satellite data. Note: This lesson is modified from NASA's TOPEX/Poseidon lesson plan.
Students review Earth System phenomena that are affected by soil moisture. They analyze and evaluate maps of seasonal global surface air temperature and soil moisture data from NASA satellites. Building from their observations, students will select a location in the U.S.
Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.
Students analyze map visualizations representing the amount of Sun’s energy received on the Earth as indicated by the amount that is reflected back to space, known as “albedo”.
Students learn how to estimate the "energy efficiency" of photosynthesis, or the amount of energy that plants absorb for any given location on Earth. This is the ratio of the amount of energy stored to the amount of light energy absorbed and is used to evaluate and model photosynthesis efficiency.